


Pressure

by ultharkitty



Series: Problems with Combaticons (fallout from the Spare Parts Incident) [9]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultharkitty/pseuds/ultharkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Vortex is strongly invested in the team, and Swindle isn’t. Set a few months after Sunrise in Space.</p><p>Contains: violence, threatening behaviour, dark themes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pressure

Vortex slammed Swindle against the wall. The grounder’s spare tyre juddered and his vision blurred. It resolved to a face full of copter. Impassive mask, blazing visor, and the world of hostility crackling through his energy field.

“Uh,” he said. “Vortex, what are you- ack!” He froze, a hand around his throat, squeezing.

Vortex leaned close, fingers worming into the gaps in Swindle’s grille, gripping, tugging. “I know what you’re up to.”

“Argh! I don’t…” Swindle winced. He should never have taken his cannon off; just because he was back at HQ didn’t mean he could go around unarmed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Sure you do.” Vortex pressed against him, and a hot, grating pain blossomed around the copter’s fingers.

“I don’t! I don’t!” Swindle writhed. He could take the pain, _should_ take it, but the grille bars were twisting, sharp fingertips scraping against his engine fan. Rotor tips swayed in his peripheral vision. “Is this about the spare parts thing? Is it? You already got me for that! How many times-” He broke off, denta squealing as he ground them together. Oh frag no, he couldn’t scream, not here, not now. But Vortex was crushing his vocaliser, was scraping holes in the blades of his cooling fan.

“You’re planning on leaving us,” Vortex hissed.

“No!” Swindle’s optics fritzed, his vision fragmenting. How in the name of Cybertron had Vortex found that out?

“You’ve got a contact on Monacus.” Vortex adjusted his grip on Swindle’s throat, and lifted. “You’ve got the access codes to the space bridge.”

“Oh frag no! No, Vortex, put me down, please!” Swindle’s arms swung, his feet dangled. He tried not to squirm; he’d seen Vortex after interrogations, when he was free to play; squirming would only make things worse.

“Please?” Vortex parroted. “I don’t think ‘please’ is going to cut it.”

Swindle’s audials rang, his fuel pump raced. “All right, all right!” he kicked back at the wall, scrabbling, trying to gain some kind of purchase, to support some of his weight.

“All right?” Vortex prompted.

“All right! I’ve got the codes!” A fresh burst of pain as one of his fan blades fell away. “I said all right! Stop it, I’m telling you! You wanna get rid of me, I know you do, after … after the incident. You won’t hear from me again, I promise! Just let me go!”

“No,” Vortex snapped. “Never.”

“What do you mean, never!” Swindle struggled, clasping hold of Vortex’s arm, prising at his fingers. He had visions of the copter taking him apart. Of his severed head rolling along the corridor, of Vortex prying out his personality component, and casually grinding it to dust underfoot.

“I mean,” Vortex snarled. “ _Never_.”

Swindle forced himself to stop struggling; his visual sensors registered nothing but flashes of crimson, bright against the darkness. “But…”

“You’re not leaving us,” Vortex whispered. “You’re not breaking up this team.” He pulled his fingers out of Swindle’s grill, too quick, too rough. The uprights snapped, small fragments of metal rattling down through his engine, falling between his transformation gears.

Swindle groaned, his pedes straining for the floor.

Vortex shook him. “Understand?”

The crimson flashes extinguished as Swindle’s visual feed cut out. He hung limp, a trickle of something seeping from a tear in his throat.

It took three attempts before his answer emerged, rough and quiet in the heated air. “I understand.”


End file.
